Cog,
Thanks for your views. It helps with clarity.
Appreciate how serious this fossil record problem is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caUKGHPpAVE
Do you expect all evolution to happen at a constant slow and gradual rate? Have you considered that the speed of evolutionary change can be different depending on the environment?... Also consider that fossilization is a rare event (and finding them even rarer), so if evolution happened quickly during that time period, we shouldn't expect to find fossils capturing the intermidate forms.
Yes, I expect you to show what Neo-Darwinian Evolution theory predicts, gradualism, transmutations (punctuated equilibrium) and how life began (after help from discredited mud puddle magic, abiogenesis). SCIENCE and me expects you to prove full blown Darwinian Evolution, early life is your best (clear easy to see) shot at proving it. You can't punt. Missing fossil means theory is wrong (not fossils are missing).
The PreCambrian period last ~1,000,000,000 (BILLION) years, that's PLENTY of FOSSIL TIME (the Cambrian period above has voluminous fossils in only a 5-6 MILLION year window). Also, many invertebrate soft-tissue fossils are found in PreCambrian strata. Problem is, they don't support a "common ancestry" fossil tree (with vast of smooth transitional life models).
We can't underestimate what the stark contrast between the Cambrian and Precambrian strata mean. It's a demarcation thunder clap announcing a special transcendent event.
This video touches on where you live, Trilobites at Burgess Shale (fascinating).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=SyEHNg1O3QM&feature=endscreen
It uses molecular clock dating and data from 62 genes from 122 taxa to infer the phylogenetic relationships and approximate time of divergence.
This is numerology 2520/1914-style gimmick. Fossils don't support a "divergence." That's the bottom line. If the fossils don't fit...Evolution is done.
What do the latest finds at Maotianshan Shale (Chengjiang, China) show?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=8USBI0GSSOA&feature=fvwp
Conclusion: The fossil records show life arrives on earth in various columns (with species diversity within limits). These columns stay in their lanes and NEVER cross. DNA and Epigenetic software instructive INFORMATION explains the various life assimilations, not Darwinian Evolution.
Darwinian fossil record shows bursts of life erupt in the various Earth strata. There is no smooth gradualism life forms. (to prove Evolution)
Conjecture that a "universal common descent tree" (grey circles) exist in the PreCambrian strata is a MYTH.
PreCambrian Soft-Tissue Fossils: Bacteria, Sponges, Embryos, Bizarre Plants
Transition fossils don't exist because the Evolution theory is simply false.